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p style=”text-align: left”>The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has declared former Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Uchechukwu Sampson Ogah as the valid Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Abia State Governorship Election slated for March 11, 2023.
Justice Binta Nyako ruled that Ogah had won the Direct primary elections and his name shouldn’t have been substituted in the first place.
Crisis had erupted in the APC Chapter of Abia State after the party held parallel Governorship Primary Elections in the state on May 26, that produced Ogah and Ikechi Emenike as candidates of the party.
The National Working Committee of the APC had communicated to INEC that Abia, Benue and Osun States will elect Candidates vide the Direct Primary System (Pictured). Whilst the indirect mode (without election of delegates) was conducted to elect Emenike, a faction of the Party conducted the Direct mode that produced Ogah.
Emenike was declared winner with 672 votes out of 892 votes cast by 907 accredited delegates whilst Ogah polled 141,952 votes out of the total 195,801 votes through the Direct mode System.
The NWC of the Party stood behind the Chairman, Governing Board of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (Emenike) despite the threats of Court cases from the 2019 Abia APC Guber Candidate.
Mr Solomon Umoh, SAN, the counsel to the plaintiff had during the resumed hearing in the matter, told the court that the direct primary election that produced Ogah was monitored by officials of INEC and that a report to that effect was made available by the nation’s electoral umpire.
Recall that in June 2022, Emenike approached the Abia State High Court compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission to publish his name having been submitted by the NWC of the Party.
The court mandated APC to upload his name to INEC’s portal as its candidate. The court equally ordered INEC to accept his name as uploaded and publish the same as the candidate of APC for the gubernatorial election in Abia, in the 2023 general election.
Above all, the court restrained INEC from accepting or publishing the name of any other person as the candidate of APC in the said election other than Emenike.
Ogah approached the Appeal Court in Owerri despite not been a Party to the suit and his appeal was dismissed for been statute-barred. A judgement INEC obeyed on entirety.
